China's domestic trade to top $2 trillion this year: senior official

BEIJING, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's broad market and potential for development will see the nation's domestic market grow to 2 trillion U.S. dollars this year, a senior trade official said here Monday.

Chong Quan, Deputy International Trade Representative of China, was speaking at a forum on China's imports and exports, which opened in Beijing Monday.

The scale of the domestic market would exceed China's total exports this year, Chong told the forum.

China's retail sales reached 12.53 trillion yuan (1.84 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2009, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

China's long-term and huge domestic market would definitely bring more opportunities for other countries' exports to China as its industrialization and urbanization accelerated, he said.

China posted a trade surplus of 83.93 billion U.S. dollars in the first seven months, down 21.2 percent year on year, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs last month, indicating a diminishing reliance on exports to fuel domestic growth.

Chong reiterated that China would continue to open its market in a gradual way, take active measures to expand imports and promote more balanced international trade.

Chong said China encouraged imports of goods and technologies, particularly scarce resources, advanced technologies and core equipment that China did not own.

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